Since the end of 2nd World War, the refugee crisis in Syria is touted to be the most lethal. Syrian neighbors have absorbed close to 5 million Syrian refugees who have been registered by UNHCR. This number comprises of more than 2 million children. Towards the end of 2016, Turkey had the highest number of Syrian refuges totaling to about 2.7 million.

Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt followed in that order. The high cost of living, limited opportunities to earn a livelihood as a result of lack of legal residential status, and depleted resources have made it difficult for many families to afford their basic needs. Most of the Syrian refugees, in Syria and in neighboring countries, resort to undesirable coping practices which translate to child labor and early marriages.

Syrian refugees as well as unaccompanied and deserted kids who have no sufficient legal documentation live in fear of undue exposure to low paying jobs which sometimes turn suicidal. The overall desperate situation is further compounded by the weak economies of the host countries, inadequate services that cannot fully meet the demands of the refugees, and overused resources. UNICEF has had various interventions to help ease the burden and help the affected individuals. Though the intervention of the humanitarian organization has been significant, it has not been sufficient. A lot of input is need from other international partners.

UNICEF SOMALIA ON DEVASTATING DROUGHT - BBC WORLD NEWS

HUMANITARIAN STRATEGY

The inter-agency Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan of 2017-2018 is in place and being implemented.

The plan aims at combining various teams together so as to ensure that there are short and long term plans to help the affected individuals and households in Syria and in other host countries. This plan was developed by UNICEF and it has well spelt out actions that will cover the most vulnerable people based on data collected in earlier years.UNICEF has been involved in educating youths and adults in Syria, child protection, and a myriad of livelihood programs. The organization has perfectly done nutritional screening so as to ascertain what number of people are in dire need of nutritional supplements and micronutrients. This activity has been enabled by regular immunizations against measles and polio and mapping out of the most affected areas that need urgent help.

UNICEF further formed a welfare to help the most affected communities through direct cash programs to ensure that they accessed basic services. The water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) program remained a top priority activity that was used to help build resilience through supporting national systems and efforts to increase the bandwidth of people who had access to schools and other WASH services. UNICEF also increased its humanitarian response to all Syrian refugees in the Syrian-Arab border, commonly called the Berm area. {NOTE TO DEVELOPER: Kindly link ‘WASH’ to ‘How UNICEF helped in Syria’}

The total amount that UNICEF received by October 2016 was USD$ 627 million which was slightly above 73%.

The funding went into ensuring the humanitarian organization’s response towards delivering essential services to all refugees in Syria and outside Syria.UNICEF has continued to support partner and government efforts in quest to deliver the urgent services in several refugee camps.

Through a myriad of outreach campaigns propagated by UNICEF, over 680,000 children in Syria were admitted in formal schools while almost 80,000 children got access to informal education.

The availability of limited education institutions in the region was a clear indication that many children would not manage to be in school.

In addition, UNICEF reached over 380,000 children who had psychosocial problems. In order to ensure that children remained healthy and in school, UNCIEF managed to vaccinate over 17 million children.

This was also meant to reduce the far reaching effects of polio. The Syrians who lived amongst the host communities were provided with safe drinking water and other services at affordable prices. The hygiene promotion sessions helped to ensure that over 169,000 people were kept safe from infection by various hygiene related diseases.